More “hotel door hacking” and lockcon

Times are pretty hectic so Charlotte and I decided to take off to one of Europe’s nicest cities for a relaxing weekend without the kids. When we entered our hotel room I was thrilled to see it had a chain on the inside … (see my previous post on hotel doors to read why). The chain is a weak link by itself as it was obvious if had been broken and repaired many times before. In my opinion it is not necessary to use force on the chain as it can be bypassed relatively simple.

I did improvise a little and shot a video on how to bypass the chain using nothing more then a rubber band for you. Unfortunately I did not have enough time to experiment on how to lock the chain when being on the outside as I promised Charlotte I would spend my time with her and not geek around too much. But I guess a rubber band and some dental floss could do the trick.

And for those of you who want to test their ‘keyway knowledge’: can you tell by these keyways (12345 and 6) what country we visited? BTW, keyway six is a lock used by the local phone or power company. And I did notice the hotel door keyway was the same as the picture I took of the lock in a completely different country.

Next post (after my short “I am now on twitter” message) is about Lockcon. It will be held the weekend of October 8-9-10. This will allow international visitors to visit the famous large security fair in Essen.

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38 Responses to “More “hotel door hacking” and lockcon”

I love how hotels/motels still use the chain lock when it’s so easy to defeat. Some use the bar lock which is better, but still quite easy to defeat as well. Maybe some day they’ll come up with something new.

I have done that bypass using a small thumbtack to draw the chain back, avoinding having to tie it to the handlebar. In metal doors a small neodimium magnet can be used
I have also tried out a simple nylon fishing line passing it under and over the door, and pulling towards the hinges.

Stoked to hear about Lockcon, Barry. Also? I’m launching a New England Open of Locksport this summer/fall. Details to follow, just locking in the space now. A lot of wonderful people are coming together to make it happen.

Why does this rubber band and thumbtack method keep getting mentioned,
it is fiddly and not going to work every time, yu will have to rerty and restart til it works, and how do you put a thumbtack in a steel door?

Heres the easy way, the chain works because your arm is thick and cannot go through the door while the chain is on the door.

a coat hanger is very thin, and with the proper half round hook on one end, and a few appropriate bends so that it can be manipulated from outside,

reach in and hook the end of the coat hanger on the chain end with the slot grabber. then pull your thick arm out of the opening and close the door so that only a thin coathanger can reach through, then manipulate the coat hanger.

Try this a few times Barry and you will never got to rubberbands and sticky stuff again.

What about packing nice solid wedge of wood and just using that as a doorstop. I’m sure that could be broken through too, but after the chain was removed I’m sure the intruder would not be expecting that and the noise would wake the occupants as their body weight slammed into the door.

What about packing nice solid wedge of wood and just using that as a doorstop. I\’m sure that could be broken through too, but after the chain was removed I\’m sure the intruder would not be expecting that and the noise would wake the occupants as their body weight slammed into the door.

Andy makes a good point – if the chain is on, then you are entering a room with someone in it. Chances are they don’t want you to come in, so skip the niceties and just force the chain. Most of these will snap even if you pull the door to and then give it a hard shove.

If you were staying in a hotel and were worried about the security of a chain against someone gaining entry (possibly after using a forged/stolen/master/etc key to open the door) you could use something like this:http://www.addalock.com/addalock.html

From the looks of it, it would be quite difficult to open from the outside.

[…] More “hotel door hacking” and lockcon « Blackbag, Barry’s weblog Bruce Schneier had this on his blog, it's a great demo of how to get a chain off a door from the outside. I like demos like this, as I occasionally need to break into my own house, garage, etc. AKPC_IDS += "2533,";Popularity: unranked [?] SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "links for 2010-04-07", url: "http://lonesysadmin.net/2010/04/07/links-for-2010-04-07/&quot; }); | Comments […]

If the chain is engaged, someone is in the room. While you fiddle around with your rubber band, the person inside is liable to sneak over, lie on his back on the floor, and unleash a massive double-footed donkey kick to the back of the door, thus relieving you of several digits.

If the door-kicker was me, I’d enjoy those severed thief-fingers as part of a nutritious breakfast.